


Imperfect World

by White Aster (white_aster)



Series: Amputare [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XII, Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Community: come_shots, Crossover, Dreams, Magic, Masturbation, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-29
Updated: 2009-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:43:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_aster/pseuds/White%20Aster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He flies, birdlike, over the earth.  Villages are mere smudges of soot.  The cities are much the same, broken and burned clean.  He realizes that the whole world is like this, and the thought does not disturb him.  The enormity of this new, ash-grey world, of the power that leveled armies, cities, nations in a blinding instant, humbles and excites him.  This is a sign that he never knew he was waiting for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperfect World

The dream usually starts in a city. Sometimes it is Archades, the grand arcades empty and dusted with grey, the terraces and staircases crumbling. The alleyways are filled with shadows, collapsed stone, crushed aircars.

Sometimes it is Balfonheim, the sea a muddy soup of ash and charred wood, warped metal and shattered pilings. The airships have all collapsed in on themselves and bob like children's toys on the tide.

Sometimes, every now and then, it is Lea Monde. The stones of the Great Cathedral are blackened and cracked, the labyrinthine catacombs of the Collegium blasted and empty, the familiar bastion of the Great Library a shattered husk. The small flickers of the few surviving eternal lamps and magic circles are the only movement.

No matter the place, piles of ash studded with bone dot roadways and floors. They huddle at intersections and are laid out along sidewalks. No flesh has survived. No flies buzz. The air holds only the chemical smells of destruction, oxidation, burning. It is as if the heat that destroyed the world has sterilized it. What little organic matter is left cannot even rot.

In his dreams, Kimberly's vision slides up and over the city, revealing the vast, seared plain surrounding it. Where once there was forest there is blackened stumps and the occasional petrified branch reaching for the sky. Where once there was moor and swamp there is lifeless, ashen water and grey mud. Where once there was field and prairie there is nothing but black earth and stone, burned down to the bedrock in some places.

The silence, the stillness, is perfect and complete.

He flies, birdlike, over the earth. Villages are mere smudges of soot. The cities are much the same, broken and burned clean. He realizes that the whole world is like this, and the thought does not disturb him. The enormity of this new, ash-grey world, of the power that leveled armies, cities, nations in a blinding instant, humbles and excites him. This is a sign that he never knew he was waiting for.

As he flies, he sees the first color on the distant horizon. This orange-yellow is no sunrise, though. No, Kimberly knows with the unbidden knowledge of dreams that this brightening glow is the source of the wasteland below him, filling the sky with its light, filling the air with its strength.

Here is the new, everburning heart of the world. As Kimberly watches, it beats. A wash of flame so hot it is nearly white pulses outwards, flowing over him. The heat is intense but painless as it passes through him, rolling over the earth and continuing on over the horizon in all directions. He shivers, his vision taking him closer to the perfect sphere of flame settled in a tall mountain. The sphere glows like an earthbound star and has hollowed the peak it rests in: a jewel in a rocky silver setting.

Power that is not light and not heat but somehow more than both prickles along Kimberly's skin, flowing in great, unseen rivers of ether around him. The magick curls warm about him, flowing over his hands and making the ink of his tattoos boil in his blood. It pulls him forward, tugging him up the mountain, and he laughs, knowing what he'll find there.

He passes into the sphere and sees himself, arms spread in abandon, in ecstasy, in _worship_, though there is no god here but the power pulsing like a living thing. It is the self-devouring serpent, curling endlessly around and within him. In an instant Kimberly is there, the power flowing through his bones and blood, pulsing between his inked palms. It is immense, uncontrollable, building and receding like a great, eternal tide. The very thought of controlling it, of containing it, is ridiculous. He can only ride it, joy bursting through him as the wave crests within him, as the pressure becomes unbearable, as fire falls from his hands like rain, bursting forth in a perfect symmetry of annihilation, and for one glorious instant there is nothing...oh, nothing....

Kimberly wakes with a start, the only light that of the pre-dawn seeping in through the tentflaps. Still, his mind is filled with the rapidly-dwindling memory of that perfect, searing heat, Flame of the Dark, destroyer of worlds, and the very memory of it--

He is already hard and thick between his thighs, already halfway there by the time he reaches for himself. He barely touches, fingertips fluttering lightly along his length, not wanting to finish this too quickly. The lucid urgency of his dream is already fading, but he clings to the memory of standing in a white cocoon of fire, power that is not so much magic as godfire flowing in his veins, building.... He sucks in a shuddering breath and takes himself in hand, stroking hard, and if, when he spills, the pleasure is not quite the annihilating cataclysm of his dreams, it is certainly enough to make him arch against his cot, press up into the tattooed runes on his palms, and trap his noise of satisfaction behind gritted teeth.

When he next opens his eyes, the first tentative light of dawn is creeping into his tent. Kimberly cleans himself off, yawns away the last traces of sleep, and rises to dress. They will likely meet the enemy today: an Archadian magecorps unit that the Flames are being paid by an unlisted party to make disappear. He will not, Kimberly thinks, be strictly _needed_ in dealing with the Archadians, but perhaps he will join the fray after all. Archer can more than deal with command of the engagement....

The measured flare of fire magic, the chemical twist of flesh under his hands, the crack and boom of living bombs.... These are not the pure and clean destruction of his dreams, but a man has to take what consolation he can in an imperfect world.

Kimberly flexes his hands, feeling the faint prickle of magic inked into his palms, deadly and familiar. He smiles and walks out into the grey morning.


End file.
